Unnecessary Trinkets
by Pyral
Summary: Bad luck really did run in the Burgess family—even to those who didn't seek it out, and instead just tried to live a nice peaceful life on a decently dangerous preserve. Part of the 2018 Fablehaven ficswap! Happy holidays, @not-worth-a-bean!


Dale Burgess was, in his own opinion, a relatively unlucky man.

Not to say his life was all woe. It's not like he had managed to gain supernatural status in his preteen years, unlike _some_ people. But stuff got rough.

Like when he got turned into a statue, or got controlled in his sleep and stuck in a net, or had to lock himself in the barn with a giant, nervous cow while his home turned to hell outside. But that was only sometimes, and he tried not to be to whiny about it, just because it probably was a pain for everyone else to hear when they all had their fair share of misery.

So he was surprised when Kendra came into his room with a cactus.

"Why a cactus." He arched an eyebrow at her, spinning around in his desk chair. His room in the main house was relatively barren—most of his belongings were out at the cabin—but it was nice to wake up in the morning and not have to eat breakfast alone.

"Don't give me that look." Kendra set the little pot on Dale's dresser. "It's for a good luck charm."

"A good luck charm."

"You're so mean!" Kendra stuck out her tongue. "Just give it a shot!"

Dale waved a hand. "Hey, hey, I'm not doubting you! I'm just wondering how a _cactus_ is good luck."

Kendra shrugged and bounced on her toes. She had hit a bit of a growth spurt after her sixteenth birthday, but still remained one of the shorter members of the household. "I mean, it doesn't have to be a cactus. But you look after the whole preserve already, so I figured something easy would be best."

"Mhm." Dale eyed the little plant. "Yeah, cacti are pretty easy… so why?"

"It's a good luck charm!" Kendra clasped her hands, eyes shining. "Cuz you're so dang unlucky."

"Ouch."

"Meant with love! There's this old superstition that if you get hurt, your plants take the brunt of it for you. So maybe they'll take some of your bad luck."

"So the cactus'll be unlucky for me. I'm down with that." Dale shrugged carelessly, but he found it a bit hard to believe. Magic, fairies, talking dirt piles, sure. Superstitious cacti? Meh.

Kendra cheerfully squished her hands against her cheeks, grinning, and Dale couldn't find it in his heart to say anything. Just let her smile and be happy. So he gave her a smile and thumbs up.

"Great! I'll see you around, then." With that, Kendra skipped out with a light wave.

Dale sighed and spun around in his chair again, finally slowing to a halt when his eyes start to cross from dizziness. He leaned over his new friend, attempted to check out the neat little flower on its top, and promptly got a needle stuck in his finger.

Oh boy. This was going to work out great.

—

Dale had named his cactus Tiny Jerk (TJ for short), because that was what it was it was. So far he had pricked himself three more times, all when trying to figure out if it was healthy or not. So that was working out great.

At least his own luck seemed to be the same. He had banged his knee on his desk and accidentally dropped his daily checklist in the mud, but that stuff felt pretty average. Nothing caused or prevented by a superstitious cactus.

Until he found a zombie finger on his pillow.

Oh, Dale _shrieked_.

Once he managed to compose himself and assure _Ruth that no, he wasn't being murdered, please put the crossbow away_ , he stormed up the stairs and banged open the door to the attic. " _Seth!_ "

Several papers—what looked like a comic in progress—go flying as Seth scrambled up from his desk. "What's happening? Are we under attack?"

On her half of the room, Kendra casually lifted one side of her headphones. "Hm?"

Dale huffed and opened his palm, showing off the zombie finger. " _Somebody_ left this in my bedroom." He gave Seth his best stink-eye.

"Oh, that!" Seth gave a relieved smile and flops back into his chair. "Yeah, it's a gift!"

Kendra snorted. "Told you. You should've given it to him in person."

"Aw, but Dale's always busy." Seth pouted and started fiddling with his pencil, tossing it up to do flips and catching it over his fingers. "Preserve stuff."

Oof. That was true. Dale was no stranger to dawn-to-dusk work, depending on what was happening around the preserve. He managed a shrug. "No excuse to scare me like that."

"It wasn't meant to be a scare!" Seth protested. He sat up a bit straighter. "It's meant to be more lucky! Cuz Kendra said she got you a cactus, so, another lucky thing!"

Dale rubbed his forehead. "A lucky… zombie finger."

"Yes." Seth sounded almost professionally serious, though it was a bit ruined by Kendra stifling her laughter.

"…Fine." Dale hesitantly tucked the finger into his shirt pocket, trying to not look ill. "Thank you. Where did you even get it?"

Seth just gave a wink and a finger gun, which definitely wasn't answer enough, so Kendra spoke before Dale could say anything else. "Raxtus found a zombie running around outside the preserves and dumped it here. But it ended up just dying again, so." Kendra shrugged. "Seth decided to be super weird and take a finger."

"It's a pinky," Seth said helpfully.

Dale forced a smile despite the gross smell from his pocket, but… it was nice of them. He never really expected them to care about something as dumb as his luck, but here they were. "Well… thank you for the lucky zombie pinky finger."

"Yeah!" Seth cheerfully fist pumped. "Lucky, lucky!"

Yeah, no.

—

"Nice cactus."

"Eeugh. Don't remind me."

Tanu snorted and wrapped another bandage around Dale's shoulder. "What, not a fan? I thought you like gardening."

"No, I do, I do…" Dale prodded the wrapped part of the injury and grimaced. Just his luck, the one day he chose to take a shortcut through the woods was the one day the dryads were hunting. At least it hadn't been too hard to cut the arrow out. "It's supposed to be a good luck charm. You can take a guess how well that's working out."

Tanu laughed, which was surprisingly relieving to hear. His expression had been one of controlled worry ever since Dale got home, and hearing him relax was like melting a glacier of stress. "Oh, yeah, it's doing _great_."

"Mhm. Though I think it's the zombie finger that jinxed me."

"The what now."

"Yeah." Dale snorted. "Apparently it's a good luck charm. Seth gave it to me." He leaned over and twisted the pot around, showing off a grayed finger stuck in the dirt.

Tanu groaned and rolled his eyes. "Y'know, I was wondering where that went. Zombies don't lose just a hand and nothing else. Now I gotta worry about Seth hiding the rest of that thing under my bed."

Dale managed a laugh, and it somehow felt like that was a better cure for the pain than anything else. "I bet he'll throw it at me, with my luck."

"Y'know, I don't have a luck potion, but—" Tanu grabbed his potion bag from where it laid on the floor and popped it open. After a moment of digging around, he pulled out a small staff of green, only a little over an inch long. "Bamboo is said to bring luck. Add it to your collection."

Dale must've had a pretty ridiculous expression, because suddenly Tanu was stifling laughter. "Oh, come on! I'm trying to be nice about it. Take the plant."

With a scoff, Dale does, and set it down next to his cactus-zombie-finger combo. But it was nice. Bamboo wasn't a bad thing to have in his room…

"Thanks, man."

"No prob. Now stop squirming and let me fix this before your bad luck gives you an infection."

—

"Hey, big bro! How's your shoulder feeling?"

Dale mumbled vaguely and waved his hand, making sure to not spill the coffee he was pouring with the other. "Doin' good. What are you doing up so early? You never get up before me."

Warren snickered and leaned against the counter. "Guess again. I'm up normal time."

"W— _what?_ " Dale nearly dropped his coffee pot in his spin to face the clock. The time _9:37_ stared back at him. "Oh my god! Everything's gonna get screwed up! Where's my boots—"

"Dude. Relax." Warren held out his arm before Dale could run himself into a wall. "Ruth turned your alarm off—no way you're working for like, the next _week_. Doc's orders."

"Doc being?"

"Tanu."

"And he didn't say this to me because?"

Warren grinned. "He knew you wouldn't like it."

There was a brief stare-down between the two, but after a minute, Dale just sighed and took a swig of coffee. "Y'all give me heart attacks every day, y'know. Who's taking over?"

"And you love it!" Warren laughed, clapping a hand on Dale's back. "Me, Tanu, and Nessa are splitting it. I get to go out in…" he checked his watch, "about an hour. So that's fun!"

"Please don't take any shortcuts," groaned Dale. "Your luck is always somehow worse than mine."

"It's not _that_ bad," hummed Warren, to which Dale gave him the worst look he could muster. "…Okay, maybe a _little_ bad, but I've got my lucky days! Oh, talking about luck—Tanu said you were collecting good luck charms?"

"Sure, I guess." Dale sipped his coffee. The bitter taste wasn't as good knowing he didn't even need to be awake… but what was he supposed to do with himself now? "I've got… three now? Yeah, three. Why do you ask?"

"Four." Warren dropped something around Dale's neck. When he looked down, a set of dog tags gleamed dully around his neck. "I was wearing those when we went down into the Inverted Tower!"

"You nearly died; how is that lucky?"

"'Cuz I got to see you actually smile!" Warren grinned. "You were really happy to see me."

Dale scoffed, but he felt a bit warm. How cheesy… but nice. And not wrong. "You were just glad to not be catatonic."

"Sure." Warren did jazz hands. "But I think it would be lucky for you! Or at least look cool. C'mon, you gotta wear something other than plaid."

"Mhm." Dale lifted his coffee mug to hide his smile. "Yeah, yeah. Just don't go getting bad luck for yourself now, okay?"

"No promises!" Warren laughed, attempted to run off before Dale could say anything, and slammed his toe into the counter. He hopped around a bit, half cursing, half laughing, and ducked out.

Dale smirked into his drink. Bad luck really _did_ run in their family.

—

Dale, quite honestly, wasn't sure what to do with himself. He tried heading outside to check on the garden—no luck, Kendra caught him and just about threw him back inside. He went to clean up around the house and couldn't even reach the cabinets without his shoulder hurting—he wasn't even using his bad arm!—and of course Stan hadn't agreed to a TV just yet. He ended up on the couch, scrolling aimlessly through his phone with his good hand, unimpressed with his social media feed. Wasn't that stuff kind of pointless? At least there were some good pictures from Kendra, and some pretty nature panoramas. That kind of thing he liked.

"Yo."

Vanessa was leaning over the back of the couch, face streaked with dirt. She looked quite grumpy, and Dale couldn't help but tense up—yes, she was on their side, but she still wasn't the type of person anyone wanted to upset.

"Could you run through how to deal with the gnomes? I think Stan's info is a little dated."

"Huh? Oh—" Dale sat up, wincing and rubbing his shoulder. "Y—yeah, one sec."

He had never pegged her as the sympathetic type, but Vanessa still nodded with a concerned look. "Don't pass out."

"Good idea."

Dale swung himself upright and huffed through his nose. Geez. It really was gonna hurt to move around for the next two or so weeks, huh?

"Gnomes." He rubbed his forehead. "Um, they change all the time, it's pretty wild… I think my notepad's in my room, it's got all my info on it."

He started to get up, but Vanessa pushed down on his good shoulder, and he fell back onto the couch with a _whump_. "Nuh-uh. Chill out. You shouldn't be running up and down the stairs when you need your energy to heal."

Dale went to protest, but she was gone before a word was even out of his mouth, and then back down the stairs again as soon as he had settled back down. In her hands was a faded red notepad, which she shoved in Dale's face as soon as she was within range—though it seemed more like she didn't want to damage it by holding on to it rather than anything else.

"Right." Dale flipped it open. "Uh, gimme a second…" He pawed through the pages. Here was his notes on the trolls, here was a crude map of the centaur territories, here was an ugly drawing of a frog that he has no memory of doing—he stopped on that one, smiled a bit at Seth's signature in the corner, and kept flipping.

Vanessa rested casually against the couch, idly twirling a strand of hair around her finger, but she eventually spoke. "By the way, what's with the cactus on your desk?"

Dale must've groaned louder than he meant to, because Vanessa leaned away with her palms out. "Okay, don't ask about the cactus, geez."

"No, no, I—ugh." Dale waved a hand. "The cactus is okay. Kendra got it for me. S'named TJ."

"TJ."

"Stands for Tiny Jerk. Cuz it pricked me."

"Tiny Jerk." Vanessa sounded incredulous, but there was a small smile on her face. "That's. A name, for sure."

"It sure is." Dale landed on the page he wanted. "Here—it's not that much, but if you follow this, it should be okay." He turned the notepad toward her.

Vanessa scanned it over and whistled lowly. "You really like to keep it organized, huh."

"I've got to. Only way to keep track of it all." Okay, maybe he was a _little_ bit particular about how everything went, but keeping track was important.

Vanessa nodded over the list and skimmed a finger down it. Her nail polish was a bit damaged, but something about the way she held herself made it seem more like a part of her intended appearance rather than just a few chips. She hummed a bit and nodded. "Right. One more question."

"Shoot."

"Why does your cactus have a dead finger next to it."

Vanessa choked on her laughter as Dale groaned again. "Listen, that wasn't my idea! Seth gave it to me!"

"And you _kept_ it?"

"Would you throw something out that one of those kids gave you?" He gave her a doubtful look. "Look, apparently it's lucky, according to Seth. And Kendra says TJ is lucky. So now I've got a bunch of lucky stuff from them and Tanu and Warren, which very clearly helped with the arrow in my shoulder."

"You're a collector," Vanessa said, and it wasn't as dry as Dale expected. She was actually grinning. "Someday you'll find a dozen four-leaf clovers."

"Mhm. And then I'll get a few more arrows, and fall down a hill, and it'll probably rain."

There was a few beats of silence before they both started snickering. "Gosh, you and your luck." She rolled her eyes. "Look, don't find a way to go tumbling down the stairs while everyone's out. I'm not doing your job for longer than I have to, got it?" To prove her point, she swiped a bit of dirt from her face and scowled at it before wiping it on her shirt.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just don't piss off the gnomes."

"I'll try."

She, Warren, and Tanu must've been successful at appeasing the gnomes, because they didn't come back to ask for more help, and instead tumbled in at sunset when all the work was done. All three were yawning and drenched in sweat, but they seemed pretty proud of everything they had done.

"How do you do it, man." Warren smoothed back his hair. "Dang. Took three of us to make up one of you."

"Well, you could put a million mes on a mission and I don't think it would go anywhere, so cut yourself some slack." Dale smiled and set down his book. Kendra had casually dropped it near him when he had tossed around restlessly for the millionth time, and although he had never thought he would like sci-fi, she really had found a good one.

"Ugh. I'm gonna take a three hour shower," laughed Tanu. "And then sleep like a rock."

"It's good cardio. Here." Vanessa dropped something on Dale's head.

"Hm—oh _no_." The moment he picked up the four leaf clover, Dale tried to shove it back at Vanessa. "I don't want it!"

"It's lucky!" Vanessa stepped out of range, roaring with laughter.

"Not for me! I don't get good luck!"

Vanessa swung around the stair banister. "You think _I_ want it? You've touched it—it's tainted now!"

"A real collection you got there," snorted Tanu. "Can you go over the to-do list with me one more time? I wanna make sure we got everything."

Dale grumbled, but he was stuck. So he ended up taking the clover upstairs and dumping it into his little collection.

Well, it wasn't terrible. At least it wasn't a rotting finger, which was honestly starting to smell a little gross.

—

"How's it feel now?"

Dale hesitantly flexed his shoulder, face scrunched up and ready for pain, but… it was fine. Everything worked the way it was supposed to, like nothing had gotten stuck in there in the first place. "Dude, holy cow."

Bracken grinned bashfully, crossing his feet under him on the living room couch. "It's just a bit of magic. But I'm glad I could help."

"Yeah, magic that just saved the others from a week and a half of work." Dale started tugging the bandages off his shoulder, and although he had seen Bracken's healing at work before, he still felt stunned to see undamaged skin. "Thank you. I owe you big time."

Bracken covered his mouth with one hand and laughed, which seemed like one of the few gestures that really seemed "princely" of him. Otherwise, Dale had seen him do cartwheels and slip in mud puddles, and that version of him was honestly quite fun. "It's nothing. Just let me know if it starts hurting again or something, okay? I'm… admittedly out of practice."

Right. After being stuck in a dungeon for centuries with no horns. Dale wasn't the best at social stuff, but he knew not to press that, and instead let a moment of silence slip by. The only noise was the chatter of the others in the kitchen.

"I'll keep it in mind. No worries, though, I'm sure it's all good," Dale attempted to reassure him.

"I hope so. What did Kendra say… cross your fingers?" Bracken held up his crossed fingers and stopped. "Uh. Please don't make that face."

"Ugh, sorry." Dale wiped a hand over his eyes, but he couldn't help but smile. "S'not bad, just. Geez. Everyone's been throwing stuff at me and saying it's lucky. I mean, I don't think any of them _actually_ think it's lucky, but. It's just a bunch of little things for pretty much no reason."

Bracken laughed openly at that. "Luck," he said.

Dale snorted. Laughter was contagious… "And let me guess—you've got your own lucky charms."

"Well, duh." Bracken shrugged. "But I guess the Fairy Kingdom does it a little different? That's what I've seen so far."

"Plants? Dog tags? Zombie fingers?"

"What? Um, no? People."

Dale blinked. "What do you mean, people?"

"Well… The more people you have who love you, the luckier you are. But that one may just be gratitude alone." He waved a hand to the kitchen. Someone—probably Seth—was pleading for a try of whatever had just been baked, and Kendra's voice drifted out telling him it was far too hot and he was going to burn his tongue. Tanu's humming baritone and Vanessa's relaxed alto murmured in and out, and Warren was clanging around as he presumably washed dishes or attempted chaos or stubbed his toe for the millionth time.

"Sounds cheesy…"

"Is it wrong?"

Dale glanced to the kitchen again, where a bit of excitement was starting up as Kendra started to hand out whatever she had made. "…Not really."

"Try making a habit of telling them that, perhaps. And maybe that'll be your lucky charm." Bracken beamed peacefully and sunk back into the couch.

"…" Dale felt a smile on his own face. "…I think I will."


End file.
